DetaineesThree arrested during Jayyus night raidOccupation
forces entered Jayyus in the early hours of Wednesday morning, where
they broke into homes and arrested three university students.
According to witnesses at least 10 military jeeps and 65 soldiers
entered the village of Jayyus at 3am. Groups of soldiers surrounded a
number of areas and broke into family homes without warning. After
forcing families from their homes and into the street, soldiers held a
number of young men from the village at gunpoint, checking IDs and took
several for questioning.http://stopthewall.org/latestnews/2024.shtml

Campaign to release Palestinian activist arrested in Bil’in
Adeeb Abu Rahme, a leading Palestinian non-violent peace activist was
arrested in the weekly Bil’in demonstration against the Apartheid Wall
(see the video, Adeeb is the protester in the orange shirt with the
mega-phone). The Israeli military is charging Adeeb with “incitement to
violence,” a charge that could bring a serious jail term. This charge
is the culmination of a new attempt to “break” the non-violent
resistance in Palestine by targeting the leaders of the non-violent
protests.http://palsolidarity.org/2009/07/7652

Prison rule sees women barred from bringing small children to lawyers meetings
Gaza - Ma’an - A prison administration decision made under former Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon is being appealed by Palestinian prisoners’
rights groups as a violation of basic freedoms. The decision prohibits
mothers whose young children are imprisoned with them, from taking
their children with them during lawyers’ visits. Last week, Fatima
Az-Zak was informed she would have to leave her five-month-old son in
her prison cell during her visit with a lawyer from the group
“Jerusalem Soul.” When the lawyer learned of the reason Fatima was
unable to make the visit, he protested with the prison administration
at the Shalom facility.http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=39242

Israel scuttled deal for captive soldier: Mubarak (AFP)
AFP - Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak accused Israel of scuttling a
deal that was on the verge of ending the three-year captivity in Gaza
of soldier Gilad Shalit, in an interview to be published in Israel's
top-selling daily on Friday.http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090715/wl_mideast_afp/mideastconflictprisonershalitegyptOther NewsUndercover cops used in fence protestsIn
a video posted on the Web site of the International Solidarity Movement
(ISM), three Palestinians wearing shirts over their heads to cover
their faces are seen using a metal cutter to dismantle part of the
chain-linked security barrier. Suddenly, two other demonstrators
approach, pull out guns and knock two of the Palestinian demonstrators
to the ground. The crowd realizes that the so-called demonstrators are
actually undercover policemen and begins hurling rocks at them. The
policemen are then seen firing several shots into the air before
herding away the two captured demonstrators. Sources in the Central
Command confirmed on Tuesday that undercover YAMAS border policemen
were used to help suppress the demonstrators at Nil'in as part of the
IDF's increasing efforts to prevent clashes between Palestinian
demonstrators and security forces. On Friday, the IDF also used its
"skunk bomb" - a foul-smelling liquid that is sprayed on protesters,
causing them to flee due to the intense odor.http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1246443811059&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

New ProfileAs
with our earlier (two) updates, we would like to take this opportunity
to thank you for your continued and faithful support of New Profile
during these critical times. During the recent months your visible
show of support has been truly significant and heartening. The ongoing
attempt to delegitimize New Profile is being played out, for now, on
the forms and desks of bureaucrats. There are two official scenarios
already in process: 1) A petition to the High Court of Justice to
revoke New Profile's registration as a non-profit organization, which
would amount to shutting off our legal channel for receiving funds; 2)
The
criminal investigation of New Profile for alleged incitement and assistance with obtaining fraudulent exemptions from the army.http://groups.google.com/group/newprofile/browse_thread/thread/6e1261872f7fd088?pli=1Popular Palestinian singer performs for Gazans via videoGaza
- Ma'an - After being prevented by Israeli authorities from entering
the Gaza Strip to distribute her new album, Nowar Nisan (April
Blossoms), renowned Palestinian singer Reem Al-Banna performed on
Thursday via a video link. The popular musician held the concert from
her home in the northern Israeli city of Nazareth, dedicating the
performance to the children of Jabaliya, and addressing the destruction
wrought by Israel's three-week offensive in Gaza last winter.http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=211648

Freezing Settlement Construction a Defining Test of Israel's Intentions
A year or so after the signing of the Oslo accords, I was one of a
group of Palestinian journalists who were invited by Shimon Peres to
his office at the Israel Foreign Ministry in West Jerusalem. When
questions focused on continued settlement activities, the then foreign
minister tried to deny them. When a journalist from the Jerusalem Media
and Communications Center presented documented facts about land
confiscations, he reluctantly admitted the fact, but said that
Palestinians should not worry about these issues since they will soon
have sovereignty over their own state and therefore these issues will
become inconsequential.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daoud-kuttab/freezing-settlement-const_b_231192.html

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Speech at Bar Ilan University
Introduction: The speech delivered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu on Sunday, June 14 at Bar Ilan University's Begin–Sadat
Center in Tel Aviv, came in the context of his attempt to respond and
deal with a new political situation created by the new US
administration and the EU. This new policy is aimed at aborting
previous double-standard approaches for dealing with certain aspects of
the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. On the one hand, the US
Administration has always demanded that Palestinians fully commit to
the Road Map and its conditions, while it did not request the same
level of commitment from Israel. http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=20080&CategoryId=31

"Who will hold us accountable?"
"I will never forget the image of the elderly woman whose son was dying
in a hospital in Egypt. She only wanted to be with him. Crying, her
hand touching the glass window of the office of the Egyptian
intelligence services, she pleaded, 'Please, please. I beg you, show
mercy, let me go in.'" Natalie Abou Shakra traveled to Gaza a week
before Israel's massive attack last winter. She comments on what it is
like to be imprisoned in Gaza, with its people, banned from leaving as
Egypt works hand in hand with Israel to enforce the blockade.http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10662.shtml

Praying Next to the Dead in Gaza
I headed to the neighborhood mosque for Friday prayer here in Beit
Lahia last week. For being in a small farmers’ town, the mosque was
unusually packed. I sat down just as the sermon began. I couldn’t help
but to take a moment to look around at the mosque congregation
surrounding me. It was at that moment that I realized that I was
sitting next to a funeral casket with a dead person actually in it. I
jumped in shock the moment I realized that it wasn’t just a decoration
in the prayer hall.http://www.kabobfest.com/2009/07/praying-next-to-the-dead-in-gaza.html

The Remaking of IraqAnthony
Shadid has, without a doubt, been the finest American mainstream
journalist to cover Iraq in the period after the 2003 invasion. He’s
now back in Baghdad for the Washington Post, telling the saddest story of all (”In the City of Cement“). Here’s part of what he wrote just after American troops largely withdrew to the outskirts of town: “Augustus
boasted that he found Rome a city of bricks and made it a city of
marble. Baghdad was another city of bricks, and a coterie of American
generals turned it into a city of cement. Their concrete is everywhere
– from the sprawling Green Zone to the barriers and blast walls that
line almost every street – reorienting the physical, spiritual, and
social geography that for more than a millennium was dictated by the
lazy bends in the Tigris River.http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2009/07/14/the-remaking-of-iraq/Ordinary livesIraqis yearn for a future without the threat of violence.http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/2/hi/middle_east/8149813.stm

Behind the mind games in the Gulf
From
fighter aircraft equipped with bunker-busting munitions to submarines
armed with cruise missiles, Israel certainly has the hardware to make a
serious attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. Whatever the mind games
and the rhetoric, the claims and denials, it remains highly unlikely,
though, that an attack could avoid some form of direct United States
involvement. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KG16Ak01.html